The Impact of Parental Conflict and Divorce on Kids

It was a piercing cold November day, the week before Thanksgiving break. At the end of a long dirt road was a shack held together by duct tape and tarps. Roughly 20 undriveable cars were piled up on the driveway. Dogs were barking. There was even a random goat walking behind the shack, looking for something to eat. The early winter snow was piled two feet high against the side of the shack, and icicles hung from every inch of the makeshift tin roof. The tattered tarps strung across the roof were heavy and drooped with loads of dirty snow. 

It was my job to take Aiden*, a 10-year-old with an anxious heart of gold, home. It was the first time I had worked with him at school—he needed support on coping with anxiety and managing big behaviors in the classroom. We lived in a very rural part of the country with limited resources. High levels of poverty and neglect were typical with most of the families I supported. When Aiden and I were done with our in-school session, I drove him home.

When we pulled up to the house, all we could hear were dogs barking and the sound of muffled shouting. I walked Aiden to the front door of his trailer and before we could step inside, his mother ran out the door and stood about five feet away. I still remember how hard she was breathing and the look of rage on her face. Then, Aiden’s dad appeared at the door. Neither parent was paying any attention to Aiden, or the support person standing next to him. 

They were arguing with each other about why they had no food in the house. Aiden’s mom turned toward us and asked her son “Well, what do you think, should your dad go to the store since he never does anything around here or should I—since I’m the one who does everything!” Then in a disgusted tone Aiden’s mom added, “Oh wait, we have no money for food this week because your dad is lazy and didn’t get up for work.” Aiden’s mother stared at him, waiting for an answer. 

Navigating Parental Conflict

I was terrified and overwhelmed seeing the high level of parental conflict and watching a child be directly put in the middle of their parents’ rage. The emotions I was experiencing were a hundred times more intense for my young client. I wondered: How do kids survive this? How does this affect them long-term, and what do they need in these moments? What do their parents need? I felt compassion for not only my client, who was just a kid, but for the whole family system. They were suffering as a family, individually and as a whole. Everyone was hurting.

It’s been 20 years since I saw the fear and overwhelm in Aiden’s eyes, and I’ve never forgotten it. I remember the looks in his parents’ eyes and the crunch of the frozen mud and snow at my feet. I worked in rural mental health for eight more years after I met Aiden. I’ve spent my time acquiring the skills and experience to help support families and the clinicians who work with them. I’ve been paying close attention to the interactions between parents, the conflict between co-parents, and the effects of these struggles on the children I worked with. 

Now, I specialize in working with kids and adolescents who experience high levels of parental conflict, who live in two-home structures, and whose parents are divorced or separated. I am a trained mediator, the co-founder of Parent Team, and an accredited collaborative divorce practitioner and co-parent coach. I specialize in teaching parents the skills they need to reduce parental conflict. I also educate and train practitioners in how to support the families they work with who experience parental conflict, divorce, and separation. 

Tools You Can Use

There are specific tools practitioners can use when working with kids and adolescents during and after divorce, and when dealing with parental conflict. Many of these tools are focused on family systems and how to incorporate working with parents as a means to support their children. As clinicians, the first important step is to understand what the research says about the impacts of divorce and parental conflict on kids, and how this shows up for them down the line. 

When practitioners understand the possible negative impacts of divorce on kids, we can communicate this to their parents through skillful, shame-free education. When parents have the support tools they need to better manage their parental conflict, they become better able to insulate their children from the complexities of divorce or separation. 

Resources like guided worksheets and other tools can be helpful for practitioners as they help children identify the most challenging parts of their parents’ divorce, separation, or restructuring. They also can help practitioners identify possible protective factors and strengths that a young client has in their life. Any of these resources can help practitioners reduce the impact—and possible trauma—of parents’ divorce or separation on children. 

Parental Conflict at the Holidays

January through March is often a time when families are navigating the separation or divorce process. Often, parents have hope through the holidays that the stressors in their marriage or partnership will change for the better. Or, they want to make it through the holidays for the sake of the family, so they begin exploring divorce during the holidays and act on it a few months later. 

Whether parents are going through a period of high conflict, contemplating separation, or filing for divorce, the holidays can be a stressful time for their kids. Even if parents seem to be holding it together, chances are they’re more stressed than usual, which can cause  ripple effects. 

Parents often have conflicts over where to spend the holidays, and changes to the plan for holiday travel or time spent together can increase those conflicts. Parents struggling with their own mental health challenges may see their symptoms change or increase if they share custody of their kids and won’t have their kids with them this holiday season.

Preparing to work with children experiencing divorce, separation, or high levels of parental conflict can be helpful for clinicians. It’s helpful to find continuing education opportunities to keep you up-to-date on the most current research on the impacts of divorce on children and adolescents. Working with children and adolescents from a family systems approach and learning how to use co-therapy when working with high conflict families can help reduce stress and prevent burnout for clinicians as well.

Lastly, learning an overview of the family law system and how to stay within your scope as a clinician can be helpful to not get pulled into litigation, a mediator role, or questions about child custody. Feeling empowered as a clinician to work with your child or adolescent clients and their families, while working within high conflict or legal complexities, can help make positive generational impacts on family and community systems. 

Twenty years ago, when I was standing in Aiden’s frozen driveway, I didn’t have the skills or confidence to navigate his parents’ conflict. Now, after supporting hundreds of families and children as a clinical therapist and mediator, my passion is to help teach other practitioners how to best serve their young clients and the family systems they live in. 

* To protect client confidentiality, some details have been changed or aggregated.